cyrina116
kpgurl54
Yesterday, the Hubby and I went out to lunch and then we saw the movie, Barney’s Version, at the Angelika Theater. If you’re not familiar with the Angelika Theaters, they tend to show the art house/indie flims rather than mainstream films. Now, that doesn’t mean that they don’t occasionally show a mainstream film, but if they do it does have art house roots.
Barney’s Version synopsis:
Take a ride through the life and memories of Barney Panofsky, a hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, foulmouthed 65-year old hockey fanatic and television producer, as he reflects on his life’s successes and (numerous) gaffes and failures as the final chapters of his own existence come sharply into focus.
My review (spoiler alert):
I loved this movie. It’s been a while since I’ve come out of a movie theater and been truly moved. The story was excellent and the casting was perfect. I adored Dustin Hoffman as the father and Paul Giamatti was amazing as Barney. While you kind of want to hate him because he basically leaves his second wife on the day of their wedding to chase down and pursue another woman he meets at said wedding, the earnestness of his pursuit of his “true love” seems to make it all right.
When the marriage begins to crack after decades of seemingly wedded bliss, you find yourself sympathizing with Barney, even though he does the unthinkable. Even after he and his true love divorce, he continues to woo her with the same relentlessness that won her over from the start. You’re rooting for Barney to get back with his true love until the very end.
The end of this film made me sob! It was so tragic. Plus, circumstances within my own family just made the ending so much more poignant. Also a nice addition, Jake Hoffman as Barney’s son. I kept looking at him and thinking, “he looks kind of familiar.” Turns out that he’s Dustin Hoffman’s real life son. He was pretty good in the movie as well (and a pretty good looker, see picture to left). He hasn’t been in a lot of movies (he was Adam Sandler’s grown son in Click), but I hope to see him in more.
All in all, I would definitely recommend this movie. It had great acting, a great story line and it was very touching. I would say it’s a great date movie, but only if you don’t mind your date seeing you bawl like a baby. But, that might just be me since I tend to cry very easily at movies.
